The LIST KEEPERS

THE AIDS CRISIS SHATTERED THE THEATER WORLD, AND THE SCOPE OF THE LOSS HAS NEVER BEEN FULLY ACCOUNTED FOR. SO SOME PEOPLE STARTED KEEPING THEIR OWN RECORDS.

- By Mark Harris

IN THE LATE 1980s and early 1990s, the giant Tower Records on 66th Street and Broadway was as close to a formal meeting place for gay men as a chain store could get. Located on the north border of Lincoln Center and just across the avenue from a Barnes & Noble, Tower was part of a literal cultural intersection. The store, which was usually open until midnight, was at times a vibrant cruising ground for men who liked men who liked opera, dance, music, movies, or theater. That was particularly true on Tuesdays, when new releases came in and guys could spend a late-evening hour happily perusing the CDs and perusing the perusers.

Tower was also, in those years, a place where the terrifying and ever-accelerating speed with which AIDS was ravaging the city's artistic community was grimly measurable, man by man. You could enter the store hopeful and leave feeling punched in the stomach. So often back then, the first sign of bad news was the no-news of silence, absence, emptiness—the cheerful publicist who suddenly stopped returning your calls; the seat next to you at the ballet, long occupied by the same passionate subscription holder, that was now unexpectedly vacant. Or the promising actor building an impressive career on Broadway who, without explanation, seemed to retreat from the scene. I was browsing in the store one night in 1991 when I looked across an aisle and saw David Carroll. A tall, handsome musical-theater star with an embracingly warm tenor voice, Carroll had earned two Tony nominations, the most recent for Grand Hotel in 1990. He had looked healthy at that ceremony; now, a year later, quietly thumbing through the racks of original cast recordings, he appeared drawn, tired, older. He was wrapped in a heavy shawl sweater that hung too loosely. His cheek-bones cast shadows. You had only to see him to understand what was happening.